Ghosts
by RosieAnnieUSA
Summary: A camping trip rouses some ghosts of an old man's past. Written for a challenge.


"Are we there yet?"

The old man turned around in his saddle.

"Are we there yet? You still askin' me that question, now that you're all of sixteen?"

The teen-ager grinned.

"'Course I am. You might not recognize me if I didn't."

"That's possible." He pointed at the rocky cliffs ahead.

"The entrance is up there. Just a little farther."

"I don't see anything."

"You shouldn't. The way in and out had to be hidden."

"Didn't do them outlaws much good in the end, though, did it?" The old man didn't answer for a minute.

"No," he said finally, "I guess it didn't." He clucked his tongue at his horse and it started moving forward again. The two men rode slowly over the rocky ground, gaining elevation as they got closer to their destination.

"Grandpa."

"Hmm?"

"How come you know the secret way into Devil's Hole?"

"It wasn't secret after the raid."

"Oh. Right."

As they rode, the silence of the high country was underscored by a low rumbling.

"Grandpa. I hear something."

"Do you. What do you think it is?"

"I ain't sure, but it's getting louder the higher we get."

"You got good hearing, Tadpole. There's a waterfall at the clearing. Means we're getting close."

"Sheesh. Must be a big one to hear it way out here."

"Oh, it'll do. 'Course, early in summer like now, there's a lot of run-off from the melt, and sound travels far in these mountains."

"Can't wait to see it."

He smiled fondly at the youthful enthusiasm. "You haven't changed since you were a little tyke. Still impatient."

"I know. And I know who I get it from, too. Are we almost there?"

The old man's attention returned to the cliff face. "Matter of fact, we are. Do you see it?" The boy frowned in concentration.

"It don't matter none. Just follow me." He guided his horse towards what looked like a tumble-down of boulders, picking his way carefully while his grandson rode close behind. Suddenly a gap appeared, barely wide enough for the horses to pass through single file.

"Stay sharp, Tadpole. There might be some outlaw guarding this pass. We don't want to get shot."

"Don't tease me, Grandpa. The last member of the Devil's Hole Gang died in prison. Ain't nobody here but ghosts."

"Then we got to be extra careful. Outlaw ghosts can be more dangerous than a normal ghost."

"Reverend Griswold says there's no such thing as ghosts. He says believing in spirits is blasphemous."

"Maybe I should have a talk with him, remind him of all his talk about holy spirit. Though the spirits you see here would be anything but holy."

The boy looked doubtful. "I don't think Mama would like that, Grandpa. You know she's a Christian woman."

"Yes, she is. My own child. Where did I go wrong with her?" he mused. "Maybe I should have a talk with her, too."

The trail twisted between rocky outcroppings that blocked the sunlight. The boy rode as close to his grandfather as he dared, not looking at the sheer cliffs that boxed them in. After a few long moments, he heard the old man laugh out loud.

"Grandpa! What is it?"

"Ride up, boy. We're here. This is Devil's Hole, in all its glory."

He pulled up next to his grandfather and stopped, his gaze taking in everything.

"What a dump!"

The old man wheeled on the boy so quickly, he flinched. "A dump! Christ almighty! What'd you expect to see here after the Army cleaned this place out?"

"I'm sorry, Grandpa. I didn't mean nothin' by it. It's just . . . all I heard about Devil's Hole, all the stories you told me, I just thought it'd be . . ."

"Be what? The Brown Palace? This was an outlaw hideout."

The boy shrugged his shoulders. "I guess I just thought there'd be . . . more. You know. I mean, Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry lived here. They were famous. I figured they'd have some fancy place."

"Well. . ." his grandfather said, looking around as if seeing the ruins of burnt and broken buildings for the first time. "Like I told you, Heyes and Curry ran a pretty tight ship here. Things went to hell in a handbasket once they were gone. After the hard winter of '87-'88, the gang was in bad shape. When the governor called the Army in to clean out Devil's Hole, what was left of the Devil's Hole Gang didn't even bother to post guards anymore. Like taking candy from a baby for the soldiers."

He pointed at the ruins of what once was a large cabin, where two walls still stood about shoulder height. "That's where we'll camp. We'll get some protection from the wind there. It can get chilly at night, even in summer."

They settled their horses and organized their camp, nestled against the charred logs of the burned-out cabin. The boy gathered firewood while the old man organized their gear. The sun was setting behind the jagged mountain peaks, and the air was cooling. They huddled near the campfire, and the scent of beans and bacon cooking made their stomachs growl. They dug into their dinners with satisfaction.

"Eat a little slower, Tadpole. You want to actually taste your food before it hits your stomach."

"Yes sir." The movement of his fork slowed down for a few bites before it picked up speed again. When his plate was empty, he placed it reverently on the ground in front of him.

"Full already?"

"Yes sir." He laced his fingers behind his head and rested against the blackened logs of the cabin's wall.

"This is the life, Grandpa. Riding all day. Camping and sleeping out in nature. Cooking over an open fire. I wish we could do this all the time."

"You'd miss that nice bed of yours. Sleeping on the ground gets old real fast. I should know. I done it often enough."

"Not lately, though."

The old man laughed. "You better believe it. Not lately. A bed's better than sleeping on the ground any day of the week."

"I think I could learn to like sleeping on the ground, if I had to do it here."

"Maybe in high summer, like this. If you were here when the first snow came, you'd be stuck here till the thaw. That'd take months. Most of the outlaws spent their winters someplace warm, like Texas."

"Was that what Heyes and Curry would do?"

"Sometimes." He put his plate down and, like his grandson, leaned back, stretching out his legs. "They liked the warmer weather same as the others, but they were more likely to be recognized. It was safer to stay at Devil's Hole, and they did do that a couple winters."

"Must've been kind of boring."

"Oh yeah, but sometimes, they liked boring. Their lives were pretty exciting the rest of the year. They were safe here. They found out that being famous wasn't all it was cracked up to be."

The boy thought about that for a moment. "I'd like to be famous."

The old man's fond expression could barely be seen in the dim light cast by the glowing logs of their fire.

"Famous thieves like Heyes and Curry? Your mother and the Reverend might not life that."

"Maybe not for being a thief, but famous like them, yeah. People are still writing stories and talking about them. I'd like to be known for something, too."

"Be famous for reasons other than being a crook, okay? Because being famous for them meant being hunted. They were wanted dead or alive. That meant anyone could shoot 'em dead, and be rewarded for murdering them."

"But nobody did, did they? Heyes and Curry, they weren't here when the Army came, because the Army would've bragged about it."

"You got that right."

"So where'd they go?"

"Good question."

The boy peered closely at his grandfather, but saw no hints about what he was thinking.

"What do you think about that, Grandpa?"

"About what?"

"About what happened to Heyes and Curry. Nobody knows where they went, or what happened to them."

"Maybe they went to South America like Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid did."

"No," the boy insisted, "they were too smart to do a fool thing like that. They probably didn't even speak South American."

The old man hid his smile behind his coffee cup.

"No, I don't think that they did."

"So what then?" the boy wanted to know. "You must've heard all sorts of stories. Mama said you met an awful lot of people, from tramping all over the west with your partner when you were young."

"She's right about that. The tramping around the west, I mean. I been pretty much everywhere west of the Mississippi."

"You been east of the Mississippi, haven't you?"

"New Orleans, but that's it. I like the west," he said, waving one arm at the dark sky filled with the fires of the Milky Way. "Always have. I couldn't breathe in them big cities back east."

"I like the west, too." The old man patted the boy's knee.

"You and me both."

"So did you hear what happened to Heyes and Curry?" The boy saw the old man hesitate. "You can tell me, Grandpa. I can keep a secret."

"You think I would know where they ended up?"

"Maybe you do." The boy poked the smoldering logs with a stick, making the logs crackle and send embers float upwards. "You know what Mr. Peterson says about you?"

"Why would I care about anything Mr. Peterson says? That man's numb as a box of rocks."

The boy ignored the interruption. "He says, even though you talk all the time, you don't really say anything. He says you're the most close-mouthed talker he ever knew."

"Mr. Peterson needs to get a hobby to occupy his mind."

"Grandpa, if you knew what happened to Heyes and Curry, would you tell me?"

"If I knew for sure, don't you think I'd go for that reward?"

The boy actually snorted in disbelief. The old man looked at him with mild surprise. "Oh come on! Even I know about statute of limitations. They couldn't get arrested today."

"Not here in Wyoming. There's no statute of limitations. If Hannibal Heyes showed up tomorrow on the streets of Laramie, he'd be put in prison for 20 years to life."

The boy's mouth hung open. "Really?"

"Really. So yeah," he went on, "if I knew, wouldn't I collect that reward? Twenty thousand dollars is a lot of money, even today."

The boy whistled slowly. "Sure is. We could buy us one of them motor cars from Detroit."

"I guess we could."

"So what happened to them?"

The man took off his hat and ran his fingers through his thick white hair before settling his hat snugly on his head.

"Hard to say. Once they realized that the governor – I should say, governors, because there was a regular parade of them in the 80's – was conning them about the amnesty, there were two things they could do. One," and he held up one finger, "was go back to robbing banks and trains. But they both knew the glory days of gentlemen robbers was over. Smart lawmen, and modern communications were making things too dangerous. Or, two," and he held up two fingers, "they could just take new names and find some quiet place to live, where nobody knew them, and live out their lives peaceful-like. Since no one's ever heard of them robbing anyone ever again, I'd say they took choice number two."

"Wow." The boy looked down, thinking hard. "You mean they could be living nearby us, running a store or hotel, or working in a bank. You could be going in to get a mortgage, and Hannibal Heyes might be the bank manager. You wouldn't ever know he was a famous bank robber."

"I guess not. Though it's hard for me to figure Hannibal Heyes working in a bank without putting a few of those greenbacks in his pocket."

"And what about the Kid? I don't see him working a regular job."

"Don't be too sure. He might be a running a school for boys in Philadelphia, where his people came from. Nobody would expect him to be doing something like that."

"Kid Curry back east? I don't see that either, Grandpa. I don't see that at all."

"He'd be nigh as old as me. People change when they get older. Friendships change. Sometimes they end, even for people who've been closer than brothers."

"If you say so." He yawned hugely, covering his mouth with one gloved hand. "All this fresh air is making me sleepy. Think I'll turn in."

"Go ahead, Tadpole. I might stretch my legs a bit before I hit the hay."

"Okay." He lay down on his bedroll and pulled the rough blankets over him. He watched as his grandfather placed more logs on the fire, and the flames rose and crackled in the night air.

"Grandpa."

"Uh huh."

"Thanks for bringing me here. This trip might be the best birthday present ever. But there is one thing. . . Grandpa, now that I'm sixteen, can you stop calling me Tadpole? That's what you call a boy, and I'm a man now."

"I'm awful used to calling you Tadpole, but I guess even an old dog like me can learn a few new tricks. What should I call you, now that you've entered manhood?"

The boy was oblivious to the teasing. "By my Christian name. That should be easy for you to remember, Grandpa, since Ma always said they gave me the name you suggested."

"Alright. From now on, I'll call you Thaddeus. If I can remember. Now go to sleep, Thaddeus."

He shut his eyes tightly. "Yes sir!"

It wasn't long before a few gentle snores emanated from underneath the blankets. The old man bent forward and pulled the blankets up, tucking them under Thaddeus' chin. He stroked the downy cheek with gentle fingers.

"Don't be in such a hurry to be a man," he whispered. "It won't hurt you none to be my Tadpole a while longer."

He pushed himself up to a standing position, grimacing at the pain in his knees and hips. He wasn't used to long hours in the saddle anymore, and the arthritis seemed to be worse in the evenings. He stood still until he felt steady enough to walk.

He felt his way around the charred timbers until he came out into the meadow. He let his feet guide him, without thinking about where he was going, around the remains of cabins, bunkhouse, stables, never stumbling. Sometimes he stopped and leaned one hand against the broken wall, looking for . . . what? A sign? A memory? A ghost? After all the deaths the Army inflicted here, the place should be full of ghosts, but none appeared for him. As much as he strained to see them, they remained hidden.

How long had he been walking? Must be over an hour, he thought. He was getting cold, and his pace had slowed. Close by the waterfall were some huge boulders that had crashed down from the heights long ago. He remembered how they absorbed the sunlight on warm summer days. Maybe he'd feel better if he sat on one of them for a while.

The long slab of rock didn't feel warm. In fact, it felt downright cold. Even so, it seemed to soothe his aching joints. He lay back and looked at the ruins of what was once a lively, bustling place. Now it was broken into pieces, so shattered that even he could barely tell where the buildings had once stood. He felt like the place reflected him. Between the arthritis and the lingering aches and pains from all the injuries he'd suffered in his reckless youth, he and Devil's Hole were two peas in a pod. We're both broken by age and assaults, but somehow, we're still standing, even though standing could hurt like the devil.

He was lost in his thoughts and memories, when he became aware of a shape moving towards him. It looked like a man, moving around the abandoned buildings, going here and there, glistening under the glow of millions of stars. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, wishing he still wore his gun, and then silently cursing at himself. What use was a gun against a ghost? As he stared, the shape became more familiar, and a voice emerged over the roar of the crashing waterfall.

"Grandpa! Grandpa! Where are you?"

He struggled to get to his feet but failed, falling painfully back onto the hard cold surface.

"By the waterfall!"

The boy ran over to him.

"Are you okay, Grandpa? You been gone an awful long time."

"Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself." He heard the tone in his voice and felt shame. It wasn't right to be sharp with the boy; he probably got scared when he woke up and didn't know where his grandfather was.

"What were you doing out here all this time?"

"I've been looking for ghosts."

Thaddeus nodded, as if that made perfect sense to him. "Find any?"

"No," he sighed. "The only ghost here is me."

He looked up at his grandson, taking in his height, his broad shoulders, his solid presence.

"I was wrong about you, Tadpole."

"How so?"

"Maybe sixteen is a man after all. Maybe."

The boy laughed a little. "Thanks for that." He looked down at his grandfather, still laying on the flat boulder.

"Want some help getting up?"

"Guess I do." He let the strong young arms reach under his and pull him up. He couldn't help groaning in pain.

"Why don't you let me help you, Grandpa? We'll get you back by the fire. The warmth will feel good."

He let himself lean into the boy's strength. "Alright, Thaddeus. There's nothing to see here anyway."

10


End file.
